Communion

Starring: Christopher Walken, Lindsay Crouse, Frances Sternhagen, Andreas Katsulas, Terri Hanauer
Directed by: Philippe Mora
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Horror
1989

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A father (Christopher Walken) is haunted by nightmarish images. As he searches to understand them, he begins to suspect they may have extraterrestrial origins.

Review:

Tim: I have to start by saying that perhaps more than any other movie, Communion terrified me as a child. I still remember being maybe 8 years old and at my Uncle's house, seeing one of the spaceship scenes. Those horrifying, bug-eyed aliens seared themselves into my memory and I struggled to sleep for a week. I could still see those images when I closed my eyes for months afterwards. This movie hit me hard as a child. So, I was excited (but also felt trepidation) in watching this movie as an adult. Communion isn't the movie I expected it to be. I still felt some level of fright with the aliens, but other emotions as well.

First off, Communion is a bonkers movie. The scenes with the aliens are often genuinely frightening. When I watched some of the those scenes, I wanted to scream out- the inhumanity of these aliens, the proportions of their faces, it's all wrong. I give the movie immense credit for the depiction of these aliens. Even decades later when the visual effects have aged, there's still something authentically frightening about the aliens. The lack of special effects for practical ones made a big difference. The aliens feel real and it's genuinely frightening. I watched the movie at night and I admit, even as a late-30s adult, these scenes frightened me. Now, pair that with other sequences, most notably, when Christopher Walken has a dance party with the aliens, and you have something truly unique in this movie.

Now, as this is "based on true events", Whitley Strieber obviously wrote a book about his experiences and meant for this to be a serious, frightening experience of an extraterrestrial encounter. It felt like director Philippe Mora and especially star Christopher Walken decided to go in a slightly different direction. Yes, many of the scenes are traumatizing, but there's also this zany comedy about the movie, too. This is most noteworthy in Walken's performance. Walken seems to not take the role very seriously. He plays Strieber as a real oddball. Walken isn't so much trying to get you to care about his character, but trying to present a complicated (and potentially crazy) Strieber to the world. Walken seems to have had fun with the role. It's odd to watch Walken ham it up in a movie that also happens to be very scary at times. It gives the whole movie a "what the heck am I watching?" vibe. I have to say, I really appreciated this. It makes the film hard to characterize. It's a movie that frightened me as a child and is still pretty creepy, but it's also completely ridiculous and over-the-top at times. The movie takes many of the scenes seriously- it's played as straight drama, the idea of extraterrestrials abducting human beings and leaving them with incomplete memories, flashes of trauma and few answers. This isn't a comedy and it takes the subject matter (mostly) seriously. There's just these other elements that are so strange- the dance scene, a few others that are just bizarre, plus Walken hamming it up left and right. It makes for a memorable experience.

I have to say, it would be easy to criticize this film, especially 30+ years after its release. However, I do enjoy alien abduction movies. There's something so chilling about an advanced race that could take you from your home at any time and you wouldn't even remember it. And, it's a topic worth exploring. Hundreds of people over the years have claimed to have been abducted by aliens. What is the truth? What were they experiencing? We may not have answers, but it's a question worth pursuing. I appreciated those aspects of the story. The funny thing is, I like Communion and I think it's a good movie. It's a crazy film for sure, but it's memorable. The visual effects and design of the aliens is superb and still sends a chill down my spine. Walken is something to behold. This is a movie worth searching out. It's a film I was glad to revisit as an adult and excise some of those demons from my childhood. It's unexpected, but this is a good movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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